


Transparent Sunshine

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: AU, M/M, Outer Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:12:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe we'll never get home, but at least we'll die with the sun on our faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transparent Sunshine

Chester’s therapist tells him to keep a journal and Chester tells him to get fucked. This is before they take off. Weeks before. The training has left him exhausted and dreading it all. Probably he should be excited. But in reality he’d rather jump under a bus. Anti-grav training has left his muscles so weak he can barely walk. Good job, then, that the therapist does house calls.

“You’re going to be alone up there.” He says.

Chester tugs on his dogs tags and shakes his head, “I’m one out of a crew of six. That’s hardly alone.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Yeah.” Chester says. “Probably not.”

Really, it’s everybody else who doesn’t get it. They’re all the time asking if he’s scared and he tells them he’s lucky, that’s what he is. He’s fucking lucky he got picked for this. If he had been a couple of inches taller or his blood pressure a little higher or his eyesight a tad worse then that would be it – trapped on Earth with everybody else.

And the therapist, he says, “How are you feeling?”

And for the first time Chester says, “Scared.”

***

They don’t get a chance to really speak to each other until they’re up there. Take off left Bourdon hurling his lunch up and everybody else holding their breath. But now it’s smooth, and you can almost pretend you’re not light years away from the rest of mankind.

Chester sits at the table in the kitchen and stares at his journal. He’d taken it, even though he hadn’t wanted to. The therapist had pretty much forced it on him. But now he had nothing to write in it. The fear he held a couple of days prior to take off and the excitement have worn off leaving him feeling numb.

The doors open with a soft hiss and the room is filled briefly with the sounds of yelling, somebody going “It’s fucking chess, you retard.”

“Don’t call me a retard, faggot.”

“Don’t call me a faggot or I’ll break your fucking face –”

And then the doors close with another soft hiss and Shinoda sits down at the table beside him.

“Bourdon doesn’t know how to play chess. So Delson is pissed off. He says a degree in engineering and physical science should require you to know how to play chess.”

“Chess bores the tits off me. I’d rather play Twister.”

Shinoda laughs and nods at the blank pages, “What you writing?”

“Nothing. It’s just. It’s nothing. What’s your first name?”

“Mike.”

“I’m Chester. I hate being called Bennington. Bennington is my dad, and my dad is a cocksucker.”

“Yours and mine both, man.” Mike says.

Hahn’s voice comes over the intercom, an erratic beeping in the background. He says, “Shinoda, I need you up here.” And then he buzzes off. Mike sighs and pushes himself up from the chair, claps Chester on the back as he leaves. As he opens the door the sound of fighting filters through again, only to be cut short.

Chester stares at his journal and writes “In space, no-one can hear you scream.” And then laughs to himself hysterically.

***

Everybody sleep soundly at night in the pods but Chester just can’t. The first time he gets up and goes to take a leak he disturbs Delson even though the fucking things are pretty much sound proofed. Disturbs him again when he comes back so the second time he gets up he doesn’t go back, he goes to the observation deck and stays there.

That’s where Bourdon finds him. His watch is still set to Earth time. It’s June second and it’s three fifteen ante meridiem. But up here it’s…who knows. Bourdon is awake, though. Shinoda will be too since it’s his shift at the wheel. So the therapist was wrong – he isn’t fucking alone.

“Can’t sleep?” Bourdon asks, taking a seat beside Chester. In the distance is Venus and then there’s Mars and beyond that the sun.

“Nah. Guess I don’t adjust very well.”

“You seem to be doing okay. The guys like you, at least.”

“Who doesn’t like you?”

“Delson.”

Chester rolls his eyes. “Tell him to fuck off. He’s just ratty because they tried to tell him he’s too under weight to come on board. But that’s what you get for being an anorexic.”

“He was an anorexic?” Bourdon asks, not taking his eyes away from the stars in front of them.

“Yeah. Farrell told me. They went to college together or something.”

“He’s a faggot either way. Like, sorry that I have a life and don’t know the ins and outs of chess.”

Chester nods. “You might want to stop throwing that word around.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m gay.” He says. Which is a conversation stopper, to say the least.

He thinks maybe Bourdon is homophobic, that he’ll throw a punch at him or something. But he just shrugs and says, “Okay.” Says, “I’m sorry, Bennington.”

And he says, “Call me Chester.”

“Okay. Sorry, Chester.”

***

Chester spends the rest of the day exhaustedly co-piloting with Farrell who has a beautiful wife and a baby daughter waiting for him at home. He misses them like crazy, he says, but he’d rather be away from them than watching the world corrupt them the way it has everybody else.

“The riots will stop.” He says. “They’ll stop when we can reassure them there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

What he’s talking about is aliens. As if they aren’t out here. Everybody knows that an invasion is imminent, but Farrell seems to believe there’s always hope. So Chester just says, “Yeah you’re right,” and turns his attention to the control desk.

***

Later he goes to the oxygen garden because he’s sick of looking at metal. The soft whoosh of the fans and the warmth of the lights to help the plants grow remind Chester of home, and he locks the door behind him. He steps out onto the walkway and looks down into the plants. It’s raining lightly and he heads down the steps to the ground.

There’s rustling in the leaves and he freezes. His heart rate increases which is ridiculous because they’re in fucking space so who could it possibly be?

“Hello?” He calls out, expecting a reply but receiving none. He steps further into the garden, pushing branches out of his way and treading as lightly as possible. “Hello?”

There’s a shadow visible through the plants ahead, somebody crouching. Chester keeps going, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up and a shiver running the length of his spine. The shadow gets to its feet and walks away but Chester follows, catches up and reaches through the thick greenery to grab the person’s shoulder.

He pushes the leaves out of the way.

And it’s Delson. And he looks pissed.

“What the fuck, Bennington? You freaked me out right there.”

Maybe Chester had wanted it to be an intruder. Maybe he had been looking for a fight to the death. Whatever he had expected it has left him feeling a little disappointed.

“Sorry.” He says and lifts his hand from Delson’s shoulder to run through his now wet hair. The rain is cool and refreshing and he closes his eyes.

“It’s relaxing isn’t it? Like some ancient rainforest.”

Chester nods and smiles. “It is. I can pretend I’m on Earth.”

“And that we haven’t killed everything.”

“And that the planet isn’t over-populated. That there isn’t global poverty.”

Brad cups Chester’s face in his hand. He opens his eyes and they stare at each other. And it surprises him only a little when Brad kisses him. But Chester knows for sure that the therapist was wrong – he’ll not be alone here, not ever.

***

In his journal he writes about Rob, about Mike, about Dave and his dreams of returning home, about Joe and his cold distance. Mostly, though, he writes about Brad. It was Brad’s turn to pilot whilst the other’s slept and Chester crept silently into the control room and they fucked in the pilot’s chair.

Light years away from prejudice and hate, Chester rode Brad and sucked hard on the pale skin of his neck until they both came. And then Brad kissed him, and it was the most intimate thing Chester had ever experienced.

He writes about how this is their secret, because Brad doesn’t want it to disrupt the group. And Chester wants to tell him to fuck off, but he still sleeps in his own pod every night which leaves him feeling strangely lonely.

He mostly stays awake and watches the other sleep. Specifically Brad. He looks so peaceful, but the second he wakes up he starts yelling at Rob. Old habits, Chester guess, and walks away when the fighting starts.

***

The journal is a good idea until it’s not.

Until Brad finds it and reads it over the intercom, waking Chester up from where he sleeps in his pod for the first time in weeks.

“Stardate…who knows what. My watch is still on Earth time even though it makes me homesick like crazy. Luckily I have Brad to keep me grounded. And having sex in the oxygen garden is like nothing I have ever experienced.”

Chester pushes the seal frantically until his pod opens and grabs his pants, pulling them on as he tears through the ship.

Brad’s voice keeps going. “Brad, I think, is pretty insecure. He starts arguments first so other people can’t. Not that they would. I think people look up to him, or they would if he gave them a chance. Like Rob – he’d respect Brad if Brad didn’t rip his head off every five minutes.”

Chester races to the control desk but there’s only Joe, and he doesn’t look up when Chester hurries out again.

“Stardate, whatever. Another day another night spent tossing and turning. I wish brad would let me sleep with him. Not like that. But I wish he’d let me be close to him. I didn’t come here for this, but I could actually fall in love.”

He passes Rob on the way into the oxygen garden and grabs him, “Have you seen Brad?”

“Not for a while. Did you lose a bet, or what?”

Chester doesn’t even answer. He climbs the ladders to the observation deck and there he is, sitting with the sun in front of him, just a silhouette against the magnificent star. And he keeps reading.

“I wonder if he feels the same way.”

“Brad…”

Brad stands up and turns, still reading from the journal. “I wonder if we’ll ever get home. If, Dave will see his family again.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Probably he won’t, though. Probably we’ll die up here.”

“Brad stop it.” Chester pleads, edging forward.

“But at least we’ll die with the sun on our faces.”

“Brad.”

Brad takes off the head set and puts it down with the journal, staring straight at Chester. “You love me.” He says.

“Maybe I was mistaken.” Chester mumbles.

“I didn’t know you had a therapist.”

“Yeah well. I do. And he’s always right. Like when he told me I’d feel alone when I got up here. I didn’t believe him. But he was right.” Chester walks away and Brad calls after him, what should I do with this journal? And he waves it, the pages flapping and tearing. “Throw it into the sun.” Chester says, and doesn’t turn back.


End file.
